


dumb i sound

by thesouthernpansy



Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Gen, Implied Child Abuse, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesouthernpansy/pseuds/thesouthernpansy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s no way to change the way this goes: Once upon a time, a stupid kid fell for a stupid trick with an apple, or a spinning wheel, or maybe just fell, and when he woke up he realized that his life had become a stupid story about when Lee was in it.</p><p>It’s taken him this long to see he might not be the hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dumb i sound

Something has ended. Veser tastes blood and thinks maybe it’s been ending for a long time. Like everything else in the nineteen-year-long fuck up that has been his life so far, this is Veser’s fault.

  
There’s no way to change the way this goes: Once upon a time, a stupid kid fell for a stupid trick with an apple, or a spinning wheel, or maybe just fell, and when he woke up he realized that his life had become a stupid story about when Lee was in it.

  
It’s taken him this long to see he might not be the hero.

  
…

  
The third week of summer vacation: Veser’s perched on the edge of the bathroom sink, trying not to squirm as Lee fusses over the gash bleeding sluggishly above his left eye. He fell out of the oak in the neighbor’s yard, he says for the billionth time, because Lee’s _not listening_. The branch had looked strong enough. Lee won’t look directly at the blood, and Veser can’t take his eyes off Lee. He has no understanding of this moment’s significance, defending his tree-climbing prowess with all the fierce indignation of an eight-year-old boy’s wounded pride. How was he supposed to know it would break?

  
It’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation, and it won’t be the last. Lee’s hands will always be this careful, though he will get better about the blood. Veser will never quite figure out how to stop staring at him.

  
It was an accident, Veser insists, not for the first time. But for the last time, it’s true.

  
…

  
Veser sighs.

  
“Please tell me you’ve figured it out,” he sneers, turning away. He needs to see the miserable, doe-eyed expression on Lee’s face like he needs a swift kick to the nuts, right, but fuck if he can keep his eyes off the guy for ten seconds.

  
And, hey, at least that gets Lee to look back.

  
“Figured out…wha?” he asks slowly. He blinks at Veser like he’d forgotten he was there, despite the fact that Veser’s right next to him, that he’s been close enough to touch _all fucking day_.

  
“What do you mean?” He meets Veser’s gaze briefly before his eyes flicker back towards the pair of silhouetted figures in the distance, and that. Is it. Veser’s done.

He’s _so sick_ of feeling like he’s always slightly out-of-focus for the one person who bothers to look at him, sick in a way that aches constant and dull in head in his head, makes him think he might actually throw up.

  
“What the hell she _is_ ,” he says, and that feels pretty close. “Here’s a hint: _not human_.” Lee’s eyes go wide at that, and for some reason it makes Veser furious. He doesn’t even suspect it, never has, so goddamn trusting. “And she’s not in love with my dad, _whoouh_ , let me tell you.”

  
 _That doesn’t mean she’s in love with you_ , he doesn’t say when he sees the way Lee‘s eyebrows go all soft and slanty and sad and that spark of hope flares up dimly in his eyes. He wants to, but he bites it back and plows through Lee’s frail protest.

  
“In fact, there’s no man that she _hates_ more than him but she’s gotta sorta fake it cos he’s got something of hers that’s more important than anything.”

  
Lee turns to look at him, and Veser feels like he’s accomplished something, somehow. His expression is still maddeningly distant, but that’s not exactly new, is it? Lee always seems distracted—like he’s _trying_ to see Veser, but can’t help but look straight through him—and there’s that softness in his brows and mouth that makes him look so _wounded_ , betrayed and confused and so fucking vulnerable that Veser sometimes wonders who’s supposed to be protecting who, here. Not that it matters, they’re both spectacular failures on that front anyway. Lee’s a grown man, but every now and then all Veser sees in him is a kid who can’t figure out why the world isn’t matching up to his daydreams, some sap with selective amnesia who won’t remember anything he doesn’t want to, and Veser envies that, but it also sorta makes him want to bounce Lee’s head against a wall sometimes.

  
Lee regards him quietly for a moment, thoughtful and fond in a way that sucks all the ire out of Veser’s gut, replacing it with a distinctly, embarrassingly butterfly-like sensation.

  
“…You?” he asks finally.

  
Veser feels the sneer fall from his face. _Yeah right_ , he thinks, but it’s overridden by the fact that Lee turns him into a total girl, and his face is getting all hot and swollen with startled tears. Dense, delusional, pathetic, wonderful Lee. Veser sorta wants to punch him, but he doesn’t trust himself to touch Lee without doing something stupid, not with that near-smile and the eager affection in his eyes. Veser drinks it in like it’s meant for him alone, like it’s meant for him at all, until his chest is tight with it.

  
Then he breathes it all out in a long burst of caustic, dismissive laughter.

  
“No,” he states flatly. “I’m lucky she didn’t drown me in the tub out of spite.” Though that depends on who you ask, really, and no one’s more amazed by the fact that he’s managed to go this long in one piece than Veser.

  
Lee’s eyes drop to the ground, and Veser ignores the twinge of guilt that pricks at him. It’s now or never, all or nothing, and Veser plans to shit now, cos he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to work up the nerve to get back on the pot.

  
“Now, look. Seriously. She’s a selkie. A fucking _seal_.” It sounds every bit as stupid as he’d worried it would, but Lee’s only response is a little frown, so Veser continues. “When she sheds her skin, she’s a chick, so my dad stole it to hold her captive. She wants out, but I’ll be damned if I know where that stupid pelt is.”  
Lee glances sideways, picks at the cuffs of his jacket. He doesn’t look up again. Anger surges, hateful and hot, through Veser’s blood, and it occurs to him that he could. He could ask right now, he thinks, and Lee’ll probably say yes. Not for Veser’s reasons, but he probably would, and it wouldn’t even matter, really, why he said yes later if they actually get it done. Hell, maybe by then.

  
Veser leans forward, stare fixed intently on a Lee who still won’t look back. “You wanna help me find it?” he asks.

  
…

  
When Veser is eleven, Lee asks him about his father, and Veser tells him. Lee worries that he’s getting into fights. Veser picks and picks at scabs, at the bandage on his elbow, and it’s not what he wants, but he doesn’t know that yet. He knows that he itches in a way he can’t understand, that he dreams, sometimes, about blood under his fingernails and peeling his skin away in one long, curling strip like an orange peel. Like there’s something worthwhile underneath. He knows he wants to see it.

  
Veser’s awareness of himself is on hyperdrive because it has to be. The swollen eye’s not new, one more thing ticked off on his mental checklist of what Lee’s already seen. Sure, he still can’t really open it all the way, but it’s not gonna do him any good to keep whining about that. Lee knows he’s clumsy cos clumsy means bruises, means that sometimes he fucks up easy stuff like stairs. Lee tries to be comforting, ruffles Veser’s hair awkwardly in the parking lot of the emergency room. People break their wrists falling down stairs all the time, he says. He ducks his head to catch Veser’s eye, smiles, gentle and reassuring, and something huge sits up in the back of Veser’s chest.

  
…

  
And they all lived happily ever after. It’s a hell of a lot to ask for.

  
Veser would’ve settled for ‘they all lived’.

  
…

  
Lee is _shit_ at poker. In his defense he’s still pretty shaky on the rules, but seriously he could know them by heart backwards in three languages, and he’d still suck. Even when he veers away from his usual Fifty Shades of Sad, his emotions are still pretty muted, like he’s got the volume turned down on them or something, but Veser’s fluent in the white noise that manages to come through. He’s the fucking Sherlock Holmes of Lee’s facial expressions, which betrays the ungodly amount of time he’s spent creeping on the guy, sure, but there’s reason the two of them don’t play for cash, anymore. Eight hands in, the world’s luckiest pair of kings is to thank for Lee’s only victory. He takes it in the same as all the hands he lost, laying out his cards with a shrug and a small smile. Veser lets out a disbelieving hoot.

“You lucky sunnuva—” he begins, grinning and leaning forward across the table. Then he glances up, and his face falls. Lee’s eyes have gone all wide and glassy, focused on a point past Veser’s shoulder, and that stupid, dream-struck smile is a hard tell Veser wishes he didn’t recognize. Mother Dearest leans in the doorway, and suddenly Veser’s doing his best impression of a ghost.

  
“Hello, Lee. I hope Veser isn’t bothering you too much?”

  
 _Fuck you_ , thinks Veser, scowling down at his cards. He concentrates on shuffling, trying to tune out the conversation as his mother bats her eyelashes, _oh it’s so thoughtful of you to spend time with him, Lee, please do let me know if you need him out of your hair, Lee, I’m a vicious harpy who doesn’t care whether you live or die as long as it makes my husband jealous, Lee_ , and Lee sits there nodding rapturously like he’s three seconds away from drooling on his own shirt. Veser clenches his teeth against a frustrated scream.

  
It takes about two years of Veser aggressively listening to the sound of the blood in his ears, but Veser’s mother finally excuses herself, and Lee stares after her with his kicked-puppy expression until Veser flicks a card at him. It hits Lee square in the nose, and he startles, turning to Veser with a puzzled expression.  
“A _seal_ ,” Veser says meaningfully, adding, “I can _prove_ it, Lee” when Lee shakes his head. “I just need to find the damn skin, but there’s no way my old man is gonna let me within ten feet of the thing.”

  
Lee toys with the card Veser flung at him, turning it over his fingers—it’s the ace of hearts, and if Veser cared enough to really think about it, he might find some meaning in that. Instead he reaches out, snatches it from Lee’s fingers, and stuffs it back into the deck. Lee stands with a sigh and goes to the doorway, staring wordlessly into the hall for a long minute before crossing back to place a hand on Veser’s. It’s a comforting, platonic gesture, and Veser has no excuse for the way his fingers curl up under it. He pulls his hand back. Lee doesn’t seem to notice.

  
“She _does_ seem unhappy, doesn’t she,” he muses softly.

  
…

  
Veser is fourteen years old, still awkward in the gangly throes of puberty, all elbows and acne and those fucking teeth. A stiff breeze is enough to get him hard these days, and the little lines that form around Lee’s eyes when he smiles have become cosmically unfair.

  
Lee’s hand is on his shoulder, and every second that passes in silence feels like a missed opportunity to be amazing. In the kitchen, Veser’s mother is singing while she cooks, and that’s unfair, too. How is Veser supposed to compete when all he has of her are her eyes and her sadness? Lee’s hand is on his shoulder, and Veser’s tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. In the kitchen, his mother glimmers at the edges, makes him squint just to look at her, inhuman and beautiful. She’s the kind of impossible that makes men go mad: Atlantis, the fountain of youth, the Holy Grail, get on your knees and hold your breath. Veser is fourteen and feels four hundred. Like he’s wearing the wrong skin. Lee kneels in front of him and touches his cheek gently, says his name like it means something, and his eyes don’t leave Veser’s face.

  
This, here. This feels huge.

  
…

  
There’s no way to change the way this ends: Veser plowing up a flight of narrow, yellow-lit stairs in some rinky-dink community theater, the raw, tight burn of a scream in his throat, the low, blunt ache of that asshole’s fist in his gut, the itch of a splinter in his palm. This is a race, but that doesn’t mean there’s a chance Veser’s going to win.

  
The room at the top of the stairs is long disused, the corners full of dust and the air stale and still. It’s empty the way mausoleums are empty, and every step forward feels like Veser’s taking it barefoot across broken glass. He’s not stupid enough to _believe_ , but always, always stupid enough to _hope_ , and what good has that ever done him? Carrying his heart around in his hands for years on the off chance that one day Lee might come looking for it. That one day Lee might need it. That one day Veser’s love might _matter_.

  
This is not that kind of story. There’s no glorious battle, no spell for him to break. Nothing here can be saved.

  
Here: the hard line of a moral, of an ending, and no one ever tells you what you’re meant to do after that. Veser sits back on his heels, empty-handed, empty-stomached, empty.

  
 _I found it_ , he thinks, horribly, as the bottom falls out of his world.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from the sufjan stevens song of the same name because find a better lee/veser song i dare you
> 
> (you won't there isn't one)


End file.
